The Peak Oil Crisis: Mid-Year 2005  

The Falls Church Journal has been publishing peak oil related articles on a pretty regular basis. here's the latest installment.

One development of note last week was Congressman Roscoe Bartlett (R Md. ) finally got in to tell President Bush about Peak Oil. According to Bartlett ’s press release, he met with the President on June 29 at the White House for “an extensive discussion about peak oil— the end of cheap oil.” Bartlett declined to discuss or characterize any of his conservation with the President, but said he was happy about the meeting. Bartlett is the only member of Congress who has been speaking out regularly on the dangers the country is about to face from oil shortages. The White House does not appear to have taken official note of the meeting.

In another interesting development, Fidel Castro became the first head of state to speak out bluntly on the impending energy crisis. Speaking at the first PetroCaribe Energy Summit, Castro noted that within the decade oil would cost $100 per barrel, an amount no Caribbean country can afford. At the end of the summit, Venezuelan President Chavez announced a plan to sell oil at a 40 percent discount to Caribbean countries.

These developments again raise the question of what it will take to trigger public recognition by the major industrial powers that a disaster of monumental proportions is near. Obviously, no responsible leader wants to trigger a panic by openly announcing oil will soon become very expensive, and then very scarce, and finally unavailable. But, there are many subterfuges that could be used as a pretext for taking drastic action without even mentioning the concept of peak oil.

The Europeans and the Japanese seem to be on the verge of doing something under the banner of slowing global warming which is quite acceptable to talk about and may someday prove to be more serious than peak oil. Policies which mitigate global warming by lowering consumption of fossil fuels, are the same ones that would be used to mitigate the initial stages of an energy crisis. Last weekend, the British announced the cabinet would soon consider a form of energy rationing called a “personal carbon allowance.”